Tuesday, 25 August 2009

Update in Photos - August 25th

Ok, so these are not in the order i wanted them to be in really - so enjoy some randomly ordered photos of the last month!

This is all the onions, now strung up in the garage. Apart from a few that i'm taking down to Sussex for Nan & Grandpa, and a few little ones that were too small to string.

This is how my tomatilloes should look (and apparently Nan's do look something like this) This photo and the next were taken at RHS Hyde Hall in Essex. If you go between 10am and 11am on the saturdays when they have a farmers market (not sure which week of the month that is) then you can get in for free for that first hour.

Theirs were grown ourdoors & were much bushier than mine. I'm not giving up hope yet though, mine still seem to be growing - no thanks to the cucumbers which have taken over the greenhouse. I'm taking on of those to Sussex too, although that is in exchange for one of Nan's round yellow cucumbers, as mine didn't stand a chance against my other more advanced plants.

Found this critter on the rubbish bin in the kitchen. We haven't seen any of the swarms here, and as much as i like ladybirds, i'm not sure i'd like them in those vast numbers that they've had in norfolk & suffolk.

This is my first white cabbage of the year. There are another couple in the garden this size. Its made about 4 or 5 batch of coleslaw so far and theres enough for another couple still yet!

These are my number one enemy! According to a collegue, the newspapers said that due to the weather they had bred twice this year! No wonder there are so many about. There for i feel even less guilty and more justified to dispose of them. The weapons of choice include an electric bug bat - the stun and stamp method, fly and wasp spray & jam jar traps. There is a deterant method i heard someone text in to the BBC yesterday & that is to blow up a brown paper bag, tie the neck with a piece of string and hang in up. The wasps then think it is another wasps nest and won't invade another nests' territory.For some reason the purple haze carrots don't seem to have grown as well as the others, the white, yellow and orange seem to be bigger. I think i prefer the flavour of the yellow out of all of them, they taste sweeter to me.

This was some of the onions before they were strung, its been a gradual process.

This was possibly the longest runner bean we had this year, measuring a total of 14 inches. not sure it would be good enough for any competitions.

This was my first Kohl Rabi, which have learnt it quite nice cut as crudites and eaten with a cool tomato salsa (not homemade although we have got 3 selfset tomato plants which all have fruit, albeit still green at the moment right now, but mum spotted the neighbour has blight so they might have to be ripened indoors!)

Now a few photos from a day by the seaside at Southwold in Suffolk that mum and i enjoyed together.

Of course i've been in the kitchen! And now i'm enjoying eating my products too!Jam i have discovered is not a strong skill, possibly from lack of practice, but it is far too stressful!

This was plum jam made with plums from work, i think i ended up making just over 30 jars of it! No more plum jam for me this year! I just had real trouble getting it to set despite following all the tricks of the trade i googled.This is my Strawberry wine that is now brewing in the garage. It is an old recipe of my late uncle, who i never got to meet. I found it in mum's old recipe folder when i was looking for zucchini bread recipe (no photos, i at that already but it didn't turn out looking too great, bit stodgy - should have drained the pineapple, but i like my cake stodgy!). The wine is due to be bottled on the 20th september, so we shall have to wait and see. something else i got a bit too stressed over.On a day off work, i filled my time by making those who were still working out in the fields some oaty banana mini muffins! devoured by all, and with compliments. In fact sam has asked me since when i'm cooking/baking next, sadly i don't think i have time before he goes back to poland in a couple of days time.

And something else i made and took to work - guilt free (almost) baked blackberry cheesecake, made with cottage cheese & fat free yogurt. I had so many blackberries from work that were just going to be chucked that i made 3 of them!

And tomorrow i'm taking in 5 cucumbers as they are getting out of control.